I have a hybrid (variable speed) mobile broadband connection that keeps changing the download/upload speeds based on location and time-of-day. So, the netspeed-applet in the previous versions of Ubuntu panel was very useful to get a live feel while running any Internet based application.

But there doesn't seem to be anything to indicate the broadband connection speed in the Ubuntu 11.10 Unity panel. Can anyone please guide me to get this type of indicator? And, no, gnome-panel or the classic-fallback that many people suggest is not a solution! I am very comfortable with Unity as I can see where this is leading - a tablet friendly Ubuntu!

As answer to your Xfce panel comment you can use this xfce4-netspeed-plugin
which is exactly like the gnome2 netspeed panel applet.
First you need to install some dependencies to compile it. sudo apt-get install intltool xfce4-dev-tools libxfce4util-dev libgtk2.0-dev libxfcegui4-dev libxfce4util-dev xfce4-panel-dev libgtop2-dev and then download the file from the link above and extract tar zxvf xfce4-netspeed-plugin-0.1.tar.gz

Navigate to the folder cd xfce4-netspeed-plugin-0.1 and run these commands. ./configure --prefix=/usr && make && sudo make install